Obamacare, the United Nations' Agenda 21, the National Defense Authorization Act. All of these things appear to be linked, in the mind of North Carolina GOP Senate candidate Greg Brannon, a global conspiracy "to control you, to control me, to control life."

He also seems to believe his kidney disease might be the result of a flu vaccination.

BuzzFeed flagged Brannon's 2012 comments during a local radio interview. Brannon, a physician, is running as the tea party alternative to North Carolina House Speaker Thom Tillis, who has been the presumed frontrunner for the GOP nomination. A March 11 poll from the Democratic-leaning Public Policy Polling found Brannon and Tillis tied at 14 percent to lead the Republican primary field.

For the uninitiated, Agenda 21 is a non-binding UN plan regarding sustainable development that is the subject of numerous fringe conspiracy theories. Glenn Beck, for instance, wrote a dystopian novel about it, and Beck's news site, The Blaze, has warned readers that it could lead to a one-world government.

"This scam of Agenda 21, this scam of humans are poisoning the earth, is a scam," Brannon said. "They are using that to control you, to control me, to control life."

"That's why Obamacare, Agenda 21, NDAA, all these things are the collective over the individual. The spirit of 1776 must be rebirthed because we are living in the Orwellian 1984."

Brannon has re-raised the specter of Agenda 21 during the current campaign. The Huffington Post reported on his comments in February challenging Tillis to make his views known.

"I want to know how Agenda 21 is attacking our private property," he said. "This is going to be bloody because Mr. Tillis does not want that kind of fight, he's not comfortable with those forums. So I'm going to disagree with this. This is truly confrontational because you know what happened? They took my Constitution away."

Brannon also said in the 2012 interview that nearly 30 years ago, during his medical residency, he received a flu vaccine and, about three weeks later, he experienced the onset of a kidney disease that he still suffers from.

"I can't say what I have came from that," he said. "There's a lot of correlation that it does."